Ectogenesis Pod

[RealHuhn]

Honestly despite certain affinity association no improvement is really affinity specific, if you don;t go into that top left part of the tree for either super gens or super farms you are not competitive, period.

*cough* academy spam *cough*

Made for Supremacy. Go wide, 3-5 virtues into Industry, then Knowledge for academy boost and reduced penalties per city. All those +10% science buildings make academies even better and on top of that you get 3 additional spies and a free virtue on your natural tech path (everything @ tier2).
Early game is a bit slower, you need quests to boost affinity and health will be an issue constantly but on turn 150, science per turn is just ridiculous compared to other strategies, even with negative health.

On topic: EP is a great wonder but in my opinion, it's not worth it as Harmony/Supremacy.

 

[erkanus]

Is it still the same after the patch? I mean was there any nerf on EP or those purity farms?
How about EP for harmony and supremecy after patch???

 

[Xenotitan]

The Ectogenesis Pod is unchanged. However, due to the changes in trade routes it is no longer possible to provide a decent amount of food to your cities by connecting them to another city with more food. This makes food improvements, and thus Ectogenesis Pod, more important.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Its a must have wonder even for non-purity players that do not want to upgrade their farms.

 

[Xenotitan]

Why would it be a must have if you didn't want to upgrade your farms? I assume such a player would be using biowells instead for food. The +4 food +4 production is nice but not a must have.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Because farms cost no energy, unlike biowells. And if do not have need for more health, you are essentially overpaying 1 culture for 2 energy. Better use farms and invest energy maintenance in academies.

 

[Xenotitan]

Ah, when you said for non-purity players that do not want to upgrade your farms I thought you meant for people who weren't going to be using any farms after they got biowells.

I'm still trying to get the hang of balance in building improvements after the patch. I used to just use trade routes to feed most of my cities and just build generators and academies but that really isn't viable anymore.

 

[CraigMak]

I don't feel that it is that strong anymore because I don't make very many farms. Lately I have found myself spamming biowells for the health. If I am healthy I expand more and make more biowells. This seems to be optimal. If you are healthy and don't have biowells everywhere you are probably too small.

 

[player1 fanatic]

I never found health an issue if you have lots of prosperity or industry virtues.
With those and key health buildings each city can sustain its health on its own.
Expanding more makes no difference since all it takes to build those buildings and you are set.

 

[Qbix]

I never found health an issue if you have lots of prosperity or industry virtues.
With those and key health buildings each city can sustain its health on its own.
Expanding more makes no difference since all it takes to build those buildings and you are set.

I am always astonished at how easy health problems seem to be solved by others. Even if I stick to merely 5 cities basically I run into health problems that are almost impossible to fully solve without going out of my way an researching stuff that I don't really want.

 

[CivScientist]

Health is kind of feast or famine. Spam biowells and generators to support them and you'll suddenly have more health than you'll know what to do with. Same with a focus on the prosperity virtue.

 

[player1 fanatic]

The main thing is that all virtue health bonuses are global, and those in combination with buildings for local health make cities able to sustain their health on their own with no problem.

In fact, biowells do not help much since they are local and directly compete with buildings. Usually with enough tech for health buildings, any biowell health would go over local health cap and be wasted.

 

[GeoModder]

I am always astonished at how easy health problems seem to be solved by others. Even if I stick to merely 5 cities basically I run into health problems that are almost impossible to fully solve without going out of my way an researching stuff that I don't really want.

The key phrase here is willingness to make a tech detour. If you really like to have positive health, you should be willing to make that detour.

 

[sprang]

The main thing is that all virtue health bonuses are global, and those in combination with buildings for local health make cities able to sustain their health on their own with no problem.

In fact, biowells do not help much since they are local and directly compete with buildings. Usually with enough tech for health buildings, any biowell health would go over local health cap and be wasted.

I dunno... I am NEVER in a situation where all my cities are at max health. Getting over size 6 takes almost no time at all, so then what do you do? Do you always take Purity 2 for Gene Gardens? Even then, Gene Smelters are expensive, and that still only takes you up to size 9 or 12.

I get the impression a lot of people aren't thinking clearly about health, because we all kinda do the same thing - some biowells, some buildings, some virtues - but it's hard to recall or judge after the fact which effects were the important ones and which ones ended up not mattering, because they all seem to snowball at about the same time: you finish and work a bunch of biowells in your large cities, you build Gene Somethings in your mid-sized cities, and you get a Health virtue or two. You go from slightly negative health to massively positive health in like 30 turns.

 

[NukeAJS]

Get all the techs that give plus farm yields (+1 food, +1 production, +1 energy) and the Ectogenesis pod (+1 food). Also, get the -25% unhealthy bonus in harmony or the -.2 unhealth bonus in engineering and you can basically get as many cities as you want and grow them as large as you want.

 

[mb2bm55]

I don't have health problems if I go down the knowledge or prosperity paths with vertical farms and no biowells.

IMO biowells are for highly aggressive players that want to offset manufactories or militaristic expansion (and that don't necessarily go down the health virtue paths) i.e. Supremacy players.

 

[Xenotitan]

Really? Knowledge is pretty weak on health. I can see not having problems if you go down prosperity.

 

[mb2bm55]

Sorry meant to write knowledge AND prosperity paths. I often do multiple paths at a time trying to get the wide virtue bonus as well as the tall ones